


Haunting

by SunshineAndRainbows



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, No editing we die like mne, References to Canon, canon-typical mass of baby corpses, made-up sign language, mute Ghost, shitlord au, tears as an artistic medium, they/them pronouns for the vessels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27258163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineAndRainbows/pseuds/SunshineAndRainbows
Summary: Inspired by ChipperSmol's Shitlord AU, where after the Embrace The Void ending, Ghost goes back in time and maybe doesn't prioritize so great.The Feral Vessel has come a long way in learning to write. The White Lady decides it's time for some answers.Specifically: Why are they so invested in tormenting her husband?
Relationships: The Knight & Siblings (Hollow Knight), The Pale King/White Lady (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 225
Collections: Done reading with waffle





	Haunting

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Once More But Scarred](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143534) by [ChipperSmol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipperSmol/pseuds/ChipperSmol). 



“ _ My child, you have come far in your studies, I was hoping to achieve something else today. _ ”

They follow their mother to a different desk than usual--one chair to fit their smaller size, with a large seat for the Pale Lady on the other side. It’s a brief climb into the seat, their legs swinging in open air. There is already paper, ink, and quills ready for them on the tabletop. It’s already so much colder than their usual lessons cuddled together. They hope this is not a permanent change. They tilt their head, the way their mother has always understood meant  _ confusion _ . 

“ _ You have gotten much better at expressing yourself through written word. I was wondering if you could explain something to me. _ ”

Oh, so this was meant to be a conversation, not a lesson. It would be nice to sign instead, but they’re still coming up with signs for everything. It’s not the best for explaining things if they have to make up half the words and their mother has to guess what they’re trying to say. They know how to write a lot of words now, so this should be easy. They un-tilt their head, quill at the ready, and nod.

“ _ Could you explain to me, just what my Wyrm has done to so summon your ire? _ ”

They freeze.

They know a lot of words now, but none of them are good enough. How could  _ words _ describe ten thousand tiny corpses littering the void, the apathy on the king's face as he watched them fall in a past that no longer exists, climbing up a second time and finding themselves  _ sealed in _ , later finding the other side of that door labeling them no more than  _ refuse and regret. _ How could  _ words _ describe the  _ crack _ of a mask colliding with a floor of corpses, and the shade of a child rising from its broken body, using the whispers of a voice the void finally gives them to  _ weep _ .

They start with ‘ _ He’, _ stop, and cross it out. They know the words  _ cruel _ and  _ coward, _ but they don’t explain anything.

Instead, they start to draw. Drawing has always been much easier than writing--like updating maps, sketching out creatures they’d fought to show the Hunter. Drawing is sensible, where letters are complicated and confusing. A mask takes shape on the page, one they’d seen a few times--once in the waking world, and again in various dreams. Lopsided horns like their mother’s branches, pitch black eyes.  _ Lost kin. _ They don’t have a better name for their sibling, and no way to find approval if they make one up.

They put down their quill and look up to the Queen, forming her name with their hands. A splayed hand for her head and branches, and two fingers from the opposite hand touching the base of the palm for her body. They point to her,  _ that’s your name. _

She leans closer, but does not comment.

They tuck in fingers from their splayed hand, until only the first two remain sticking out, and put the two fingers from their opposite hand back to their palm. Almost the same sign, but with just the two lopsided branches. They point to the mask on their paper.

“ _ A sapling?”  _ She speaks softly, confused, but smiling, as if some part of her is delighted one of their siblings would take after her.

The smile in her voice burns at the back of their throat. They watch her face carefully as they score a dark line diagonally across their sibling’s face, adding jagged edges to round eyes, a web of cracks, a hole gouged out the top. They know how to write the word  _ dead _ too, but they don’t think they need it now.

Her breath catches and she draws back. Eyes appropriately wide with horror. Some squirming thing behind their lungs feels  _ satisfied _ . She should feel horrified. Sometimes they can’t even remember how to feel anything  _ but _ horror and creeping disgust.

They turn back to their page, hand back to their quill. They start sketching out every mask they can remember piled up in the abyss. Every horn shape, every pattern, eyeholes wide and dark, and a dark crack scored between the center of each one. The page is three-quarters filled when it blurs before resolving itself, a drop of translucent but void-dark fluid staining the page. They try to smear their first tear away, graying the page, ink perfectly visible beneath. They draw three more masks before the second tear hits the page. This one, they smear down, and use just the tip of a tapered finger to pull the top into a pattern of horns. Shades have white eyes, but Ghost only has black ink. The inaccuracy will have to stand.

The half-soaked page runs out of space before they run out of masks and they throw it aside, not caring where it lands as they reach for another. And another. And another. by the fourth page their tears have run their course. At the top they sketch out the seal across the entrance of the abyss, with the Pale King’s likeness, sealed to anyone without the King’s Brand. They had visited, the first time the king had thrown them out of the castle. They had been entertaining the idea of helping more siblings out of the abyss, but it was already sealed, the stupid lore tablet brand new and already in place. (Instead, they had climbed up to the Royal Waterways and caught a couple flukefey. It had been tricky, but well worth it to hear the chaos they unleashed once Ghost had snuck back into the palace.)

_ ‘Refuse and regret’ _ they scrawl out underneath the seal. ‘ _ No cost too great.’ _

They still have half the page left, so they draw the first thing they will never forgive the Pale King for. They still only have black ink, so they leave the glowing orange spots white. The Hollow Knight takes shape on the page. Eyes whited out, chest bubbling with infection, nail turned inward and raised, about to drive deep into their own flesh.

‘ _ No cost too great’ _ again underneath.

They go still, quill poised above the page, nothing more to add that isn’t already redundant.

Then, in a flurry of motion, they slap the quill down on the desk, shove the last page towards the Queen, flip over the back of their chair, and dash to the door. They can’t bear to see her react; don’t want to know if she’ll feel guilty or make excuses; don’t even want to hear her voice right now. They catch their arm against the doorway, sending them into a spiral so they don't have to slow down to turn before sprinting down the hallway.  


Their name is Ghost. 

The name is half a gift and half a curse, from a sibling that did not love them yet, but maybe came around in the end, and now rides around in their horns and does not remember a world before. Their name is Ghost because they were already dead but still walking the world of the living. Their name is Ghost because they’re too stubborn for death--to stubborn to  _ lose _ . They may not be able to save anyone right now, but they’re working on it. They’ll figure it out. They  _ will _ figure it out; they’ve got too many siblings counting on them to possibly fail. But in the meantime?

Their name is Ghost, and they’ve got someone to haunt.

**Author's Note:**

> somebody remind me to proofread this tomorrow
> 
> anyways, first Hollow Knight fic! I haven't actually played the game (yet), but this past month I've been living and breathing the wiki. If there's anything I've missed or characterization I've messed up, please let me know.  
> Thanks for reading, make sure to check out ChipperSmol's AU on tumblr, it's so good.


End file.
